Deep Sea Discoveries

The theory of plate tectonics and the continental drift was first accepted by the geoscientific community in the 1950s and 1960s when Phillip Kuenen wrote a paper titled No Geology without Marine Geology. The discovery of this theory was made possible by the scientific infrastructure of oceanographic institutions, instruments and vessels that developed in the aftermath of World War II. Instrumentation has greatly advanced since then and many milestones and discoveries of deep sea exploration have been achieved. Some of the most notable discoveries are listed below.

• The British researcher Sir John Ross discovered marine life in the form of jelly fish and worms at   a depth of approximately 2000 metres in 1818.
   
• The first organised deep sea exploration was directed between 1872 and 1876 by Charles Wyville Thomson on the HMS Challenger.
   
• William Beebe and Otis Barton, in 1930, were the first explorers to decent into the deep sea in a spherical deep sea submersible, known as the Bathysphere. They reach a depth of 435 metres where they observed a variety of marine life. In 1948, Otis Barton reached record breaking depths of 1370 metres.
   
• In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descended to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in their deep sea vessel recording a depth of 10,740 metres. 
   
• In 2012, the first solo attempt to reach the deepest point of the Pacific Ocean was achieved by film director James Cameron in the vessel Deepsea Challenger.

Deep sea exploration has revolutionised biological science and, with it, has led to the discovery of a plethora of marine organisms. Exposure to extreme environmental conditions has made these organisms highly adaptable and genetically diverse. Many deep sea marine organisms are therefore a rich and relatively untapped resource among the bio-marine industry. 

Biotechnology is an emerging discipline that researches ocean life forms, primarily their healing properties. Biotechnological applications not only assist in the development of medical drugs but also in increasing food supply, developing new resources and industrial processes and in environmental remediation.